


Onion Tears

by lysanatt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adultery, Break Up, Divorce, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysanatt/pseuds/lysanatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is always a point in a ruined relationship when one just knows it is over, when one knows that there are no remains of love left to salvage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onion Tears

You think of the tears before bedtime, the only moment you are allowed to keep your face hidden in the pillows. The world is disappearing in a warm cave of down and despair. Next to you lies Emptiness with his vast, cold body, refusing your warmth and your longing. The empty side of the bed bears witness of your ruined relationship. You don't have to wait. You know already. The late nights, the silence, the forced smiles. You know how this goes, for he has done it before.

With you.

His carelessness is a dagger. He laughs and leaves for morning practice. _I'll be home for dinner_. But you don't know which dinner he means for the day passes by and evening blooms, dark and frozen. His plate stands white and cold on the other side of the table, a small island of rejected hunger. Your life goes on. Little moments of normality encase the decay. The day stretches out, an infinite collection of painful seconds. In between the unbearable passing of time, you perform these separate acts of everyday life. The laundry. The rubbish. The cleaning of what you had together.

The vacuum cleaner hums.

You pretend, for you are stone. You are ice.

You sit down at the table, this morning's Prophet open. Page three. _Puddlemere's pride, Keeper Oliver Wood and friend,_ the text underneath the picture says. Flashes go off and he smiles his guilty smile: the same pretence, the same act, the same bloody avoidance. Oh, you know how it goes, for it is an exact repetition of yet another recognisable play with three players. _Oliver Wood and friend, Falcons' Marcus Flint_. And Katie, of course. Playing the part that you now are taking over. _Oliver Wood and friend, part one, two, three_. You should have known that fate is cold. Merciless, stone-cold, ruthless. Like you. You had no mercy when Katie was sitting at home, looking at the empty plate, the empty bed, the empty life.

You got what you wanted. The glorious sex. The way he looked at you, all hatred and competition suddenly turned into a furnace of desire and lust. The heated moments under the Quidditch pitch; your orgasm applauded by thousands of spectators, unaware of the blazing fire underneath their feet.

He got what he wanted too. He sliced you up, tore you down and then looked at you, just looked before you fell. And fall you did. You would do anything for him, suddenly turning into this loyal, brave companion. He crushed you, stone for stone until there was no more flint left. No more Flint.

You are dust.

His carelessness is killing you. You believe he is not aware that he is doing this to you, driving you to the limit of yourself. You can almost hear him, his brilliant laughter. You can smell him; the scent of crisp air and sweat. You know how he feels, this man-child, eager and enthused, a small force of well-shaped nature. He laughs now in the darkness somewhere, you know it. He laughs and tells his _friend_ that _of course Marcus won't notice. He's not very bright_.

You know that. You are not very bright, but it feels as the utmost defeat that the man who said he loved you treats you as if you were dust. Stone. As if your feelings and your heart had vanished, as if they were never there. But your tears... your tears have no shape. They form and drip and dry only in your mind. Dry-eyed Flint. They feed your anger, they salt it with a spice of jealousy and despair.

Darkness fills the house; a fish tank of depression. The night rolls over, getting up on its tired feet while you turn in your bed, every ten minutes gasping and waking before exhaustion throws you back in the ocean again. You sleep little and drown a lot.

Morning comes with the same loneliness, the same empty bed.

Your body moves. You reach out and turn off the alarm. Somebody dresses and walks and pours half a bottle of yoghurt into a bowl. Someone eats. Someone. You return to your body and don your armour. Leather shins. Leather gloves. You find your broom and a face that goes with it. You polish your expression and tighten your pain. You are Flint. It is cold when you leave and maybe that is just how it feels to be ice. But you have work to do, a game to play, another game. You know the rules of that one.

The house is untouched, unmoved, when you return. The emptiness is filled with the constant dripping of time; the clock crisply counting down. _Tick tock_. You go on as if your day is just like any other day: you shower, you read the paper, you pull out two steaks from the fridge. You slice an onion.

He enters the kitchen with an armful of flowers. 'Sorry, I'm late.' The flowers smell of decaying death and of his troubled conscience. He never gives you flowers.

Even the onion commits treason. The sharp smell cuts away your façade. Flowers are for funerals and you are burying your relationship.

'You're with him now,' you say. 'The dragon boy.' You wipe a tear away, holding up the onion of deceit. It makes you cry.

'Yeah. Charlie. He... I...' He doesn't even care enough to lie to you any longer. 'Sorry.'

You can see it in his eyes. He is not with you anymore. Even now his mind is playing yesternight's movie: a heated embrace, moans in the dark, the passion. A rough fuck against the wall. Even now, with you, crying your dry tears, your dry pain, he thinks of him, of Charlie. There is no compassion, no love left for you anywhere.

He looks at you with his Medusa-eyes and you turn to stone.

You are flint. You are dust.

You are done.

**Author's Note:**

> For inspiration, to Carol Ann Duffy and Kate Bush. Written for Woldy's prompt at Dysfuncentine 2012.


End file.
